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In 1985, I saw many stories about Dwight Gooden that put the emphasis on his age, and hence implicitly on his potential to be a Hall of Famer and an all-time great. And I thought at the time that the emphasis was misplaced. Of course many all-time great pitchers weren't in the majors when they were 20, and that sort of comparison is pretty much useless. But the biggest complaint I had was that all that talk of age and potential wound up detracting from celebrating that Gooden was having one of the greatest seasons ever by a pitcher - right now, in the moment. Gooden didn't win the MVP; presumably most voters felt that that award wasn't intended for starting pitchers, but perhaps a few of them were thinking, "We'll get to him later in a year when his team wins the division." Of course, that "later" never came and Gooden did not put together a Hall of Fame career.

If a very young pitcher is having a great season, enjoy it now and look at that season in its own right.

That said, a year with 180-190 IP and an ERA+ around 150-160 is a very nice year, but it's not on the same continent as Gooden's 1985, and shouldn't be talked about in the same terms.

Gooden didn't win the MVP; presumably most voters felt that that award wasn't intended for starting pitchers, but perhaps a few of them were thinking, "We'll get to him later in a year when his team wins the division." Of course, that "later" never came and Gooden did not put together a Hall of Fame career.

This is one of those odd ones, where NL voters didn't seem interested in giving the MVP to a pitcher (as Gibson was the last to win a MVP aware in the NL in 1968, and the next to win was TBD), but the AL MVP voters had given the MVP to pitchers in 1971 (Blue), 1981 (Fingers), 1984 (Hernandez), 1986 (Clemens), 1992 (Eckersley), and 2011 (Verlander).

I have no idea why the NL and AL voters seemed to have such a different view of the eligibility of pitchers for the MVP.

Miami fans hav e to be excited about that long string of 5th place finishes in the future.

I get that you're snarking Loria but the Marlins are far better off now than if they hadn't made the moves that everyone hated the last year or so. The mistakes were the signings, not wriggling out of them. THe future looks damn good in Miami.

Marisnick looks interesting and presumably they get a few decent starter/reliever seasons out of the flotilla of pitchers but there's no obvious baseball advantage to that haul. All of their young position players in the majors are struggling mightily. Their young pitchers in the majors are ones they had already aside from Alvarez. They are having success but, Fernandez aside, they have low K-rates and bad K/BB rates.

Those signings weren't mistakes, they got good players at reasonable prices. Trading them away had nothing to do with fielding a better baseball team now or in the future.

The fascinating thing to me about Gooden's 1985, as was alluded to, is that there's zero chance it would have happened had he come along 20 years later. He'd have spent his age 20 season capped at 140 innings in AA ball.

Gooden was in A ball at age 18. He had 191 IP, including 10 complete games (you're right, that wouldn't happen). In those 191 innings, he had 300 strikeouts. He was quite convincingly too good for the league. (His walks were fairly high, but even that is in part a consequence of the batters being so overmatched that they couldn't put the ball in play and there was no way out except the K or the BB.) It was Davey Johnson's call to yank him straight from A ball to the majors at age 19. He was uneven but near-great in the majors at age 19, setting up the fabulous age 20 season.

So in the updated scenario: Some rookie league innings at 17, a full season of A ball at 18, but not 191 IP and not the opportunity to get the 300 K's. He still earns the promotion to AA at age 19, and by August, he's too good for that AA league. I'm not sure what then.

This is one of those odd ones, where NL voters didn't seem interested in giving the MVP to a pitcher (as Gibson was the last to win a MVP aware in the NL in 1968, and the next to win was TBD), but the AL MVP voters had given the MVP to pitchers in 1971 (Blue), 1981 (Fingers), 1984 (Hernandez), 1986 (Clemens), 1992 (Eckersley), and 2011 (Verlander).

Good point. Off the top of my head... Seaver in 1969, Doc in '85, Hershiser in '88, Maddux in '95, Randy Johnson in '02, Lidge in '08 or Halladay in '10 all would have been eminently legit MVP choices in the National League.